For the TL/DR crowd, Purdue's AD has flat-out told the press that if Marcius transfers, he has to pay for his summer school (which he needs to graduate in order to avail himself of the grad year exception) himself. This is about $7K. If you come back, all is forgiven! School is free again!! Plus you get to cuddle with AJ Hammons in the low post for another year!!!

"Burke told Marcius that he has endeared himself to the fan base and that a permanent affiliation with Purdue will help him in the business world."

Wow. Now, I'm certainly not arguing that universities should have to actually care about the welfare of their student athletes, at least if they're ceasing to be their own, but let's look at this critically, shall we?

It's one thing to make this "offer" (in fact, it's fairly understandable) but quite another to make it public. What does that gain Purdue? Other basketball players have ears, and all this story needs is a little traction and then you have Bo Ryan / Jarrod Uthoff v2.0. Then Purdue will WISH they'd just paid the $7K and saved the face. Then, even if he DOES come back, what have you won? A year's worth of Sullen Croatian? (And the paper, to its credit, does bring up the fact that they have paid for others in the past...)

I'm thinking this is the NCAA equivalent of "don't break up with me or you owe me for the tux i rented for prom".

Other things we can learn from this:
1) Never, ever, trust a dude named "Morgan".
2) Huge universities can indeed act like a jilted sorority girl even when dumped by a single one of their 40K+ students.
3) One would have thought that in "leaving Croatia behind" you'd perhaps have also left behind "getting suspended by your thumbs under questioning by the authorities". Welp.
4) Matt Painter has been listening to the Eagles' "Hotel California" on repeat play on his iPod ('you can check out any time you like...')
5) If your coach looks like a used-car salesman, he will probably act like one too.
6) Don't go to Purdue. Just don't.

So Painter's seriously considering leaving Purdue for Mizzou? Why? A cursory look at his wiki profile indicates no Mizzou links- he went to Purdue for undergrad was on Keady's staff, and was a head coach at various directional Illinoises. And you're trying to tell me that a second tier Big (formerly) 12 school can offer more in cash, benefits, and chacne to win than one of the top 3 hoops programs in the Big Ten? Especially with Indiana comatose and MSU teetering on edge of falling from eliteness? Man this just doesn't make sense to me.